Krambu could open Bonner data center within months
Laura Lundquist
(Missoula Current) If a few agreements fall into place, an Idaho-based computer company could open a data center at the former Bonner mill as early as June.
On Friday, it was standing-room only at St. Ann Catholic Church in Bonner as more than 100 people gathered for an informational meeting on the possibility of a data center moving into the planer building of the former Bonner Mill. Mike Heisey, Bonner Property Development co-owner, joined three people associated with Krambu, the company proposing the data center, for a two-hour question-and-answer discussion that got a bit heated at times. The grassroots group Friends of 2 Rivers organized the meeting.
Steven Wood, Krambu’s CEO, said Bonner was one of the sites he was considering for Krambu’s next data center and he doesn’t have a client for the data yet. First, Krambu needs to do its due diligence on the building and determine what kind of power they could procure. However, barring any unseen hurdle, the first phase of the data center - about 1 megawatt’s worth - could be up and running by June, Wood told the Current.
“We tend to move fast once we’re in,” Wood told the Current.
For context, 1 megawatt is enough to power almost 800 homes for a year in the Pacific Northwest, according to the Northwest Power and Conservation Council. Wood said 1 megawatt would power about 100 square feet of servers. According to the real estate listing, the planer building has approximately 240,000 square feet.
Amber Orr, Krambu electrical engineer, said the data center’s initial request was for up to 3 megawatts, which would come from a renewable-energy source out of the local area so it wouldn’t affect local customers. Then Krambu would contract with NorthWestern energy to transmit the power to the mill. So if the data center expands, Krambu may have to upgrade NorthWestern’s transmission system to handle the increase in power. A NorthWestern Energy employee was at the meeting but didn’t comment.
“We don’t know if there would be a requirement for structural improvements. If there is a requirement, we have to pay that upfront before NorthWestern would even start the work. So it should be zero impact on your rates,” Orr said.
Svein Newman, Missoula County Climate Action Program manager, said Missoula County learned a lesson after Hyperblock, a bitcoin-mining operation, set up hundreds of servers in the planer building in 2020. Hyperblock sucked up a third of the power used by the city of Missoula on a daily basis before it went bankrupt. To prevent a repeat of that, the Missoula County Commissioners passed regulations in 2022 requiring new computer operations to provide their own energy from a renewable source.
Hyperblock contracted with the Confederate Salish and Kootenai Tribes’ Selis' Ksanka Qlispe Dam to buy the huge amount of power needed to run the servers continuously. So it’s possible that Krambu may try the same thing, but Orr said Krambu was still looking at options.
Missoula County planner Jennie Dixon said the county didn’t have a final application from Krambu yet, although the company might submit one next week. Dixon said her understanding based upon the preliminary application was the data center would use up to 10 megawatts - Hyperblock was using 20 megawatts - and Krambu has a vision of expanding to 100 megawatts. But Orr objected to that, saying her request was for only 3 megawatts, and she didn’t know if they could get the electrical infrastructure to get up to 100 megawatts.
Wood said he learned about the Bonner mill site only six weeks ago. But Krambu’s website has a July 22, 2025, press release that talks about developing a 100-megawatt “AI factory in Montana.” Krambu has no other facility in Montana. Wood said Krambu’s only other facility with its new technology is preparing to open in Newport, Wash.
After UPF Industries announced in July that it would pull out of the planer building, Heisey said he has struggled to find other companies to rent the giant space. Since the mill site is zoned heavy-industrial, he tried everything from meat-packing companies to house manufacturers and even gun manufacturers.
“One of the things we have here is we’re so far from everything,” Heisey said. “I have tried as many manufacturing ideas as I could and have come up empty-handed.”
Wood said his ideal client for the data center would be companies focused on biomedical studies, but he might not be able to find someone like that. So he’s also talking to other companies. When he attended the Nvidia GTC artificial intelligence conference in San Jose, Calif., last week, he mentioned the Bonner site to people there, Wood said.
“I was talking with some potential off-takers and I mentioned this site. I said ‘Would you be interested in this site?’ and some of them were jumping right on it,” Wood said.
The Bonner site could provide data for anything, including another blockchain/bitcoin operation. The president of Krambu, Travis Jank, got his start in bitcoin, Wood said. Wood is also the CEO of Paradox Data, which joined with Krambu eight months ago to announce the construction of an AI and blockchain data center in Pennsylvania.
Many of the Bonner residents were concerned about how much water the data center would use and the potential for noise. Wood said noise wouldn’t be a factor like it was with Hyperblock because Krambu uses state-of-the-art water-cooling rather than fans.
Matthew Afana of Polar Construction said water use is minimal because they use a closed-loop system that uses the same water several times. The water pipes travel across the servers to pick up the heat and then travel though towers to be cooled again before returning to the servers. The water would come from the mill property’s well, and the system would use 500 gallons of water per megawatt, Afana said. If the data center does grow to 100 megawatts, that would be 50,000 gallons being pulled out of the ground, an amount that probably should require a water right.
Dixon said the county land-use board will have a May 6 meeting for a special exception review of the application for noise standards. Once the data center is approved, it’s up to the citizens to enforce the zoning regulations because it’s “on a complaint basis,” Dixon said. If there is a zoning violation, the county first issues a warning and pursues stronger enforcement actions after that.
“View this from the perspective of what kind of neighbors will they be and do you feel comfortable enough with the regulations that are in place that the impact to you may not materialize,” Dixon said. “I do understand your fears.”
There would be no noticeable increase in traffic, because data centers don’t employ many people. Wood said three employees, on average, would be needed for every 2 megawatts of servers. If the site uses the captured heat to grow hydroponic vegetables, that could create a few more jobs, Wood said.
“It’s not like a sawmill; it’s not like a paper machine,” Wood said. “Most data centers don’t hire that many employees.”
Contact reporter Laura Lundquist at lundquist@missoulacurrent.com.